


attempts at a liminal darkness

by 100demons



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe - Assassins & Hitmen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-02
Updated: 2014-10-02
Packaged: 2018-02-19 14:52:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2392355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/100demons/pseuds/100demons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It’s the way he holds his steak knife, wrist bone jutting out from the edge of his crisp cuff, weighted with heavy silver studs that carry the insignia of a crown. The heavy wooden handle looks natural in his slim white fingers, slicing through delicate pink flesh in neat economical motions."</p><p>[A compilation of all the rough drafts I wrote for my perfect copy remix.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	attempts at a liminal darkness

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [in the liminal darkness](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2182734) by [100demons](https://archiveofourown.org/users/100demons/pseuds/100demons). 



_the one where midorima is an assassin-accountant_

 

It’s the way he holds his steak knife, wrist bone jutting out from the edge of his crisp cuff, weighted with heavy silver studs that carry the insignia of a crown. The heavy wooden handle looks natural in his slim white fingers, slicing through delicate pink flesh in neat economical motions.

Takao studies the casual sweep of dark hair spanning his high forehead, the carefully ironed angles of his collar, the shadow of his Adam’s apple like a gentle caress on his throat.

“Where did you say you worked?” Takao asks, swirling the glass of wine in one hand. He’d seen it done before during an infomercial once, drifting through late night channels with the company of cheap warm beer.

“I didn’t.” Midorima sets down his fork and presses his napkin against his stainless lips. “But, as it happens, I’m retired.”

“Retired?” Takao chokes mid-sip and sets down his glass hurriedly, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “You can’t be more than my age.”

Midorima gives him a thin lipped smile and picks up the knife again, waving it in the air every so often for emphasis. “I was an accountant for a major firm,” he says, vague tone at odds with the keen preciseness of his movements. “After a while, I began to realize that my real interests lay elsewhere and by then I had amassed enough to live in relative comfort for a few years.”

Takao tries to process this. “Relative comfort?”

“I had to settle for buying a sixty foot yacht instead of the two hundred foot I was originally considering,” Midorima informs him.

Takao sits there for a few minutes scrambling to come up with a response, absolutely gobsmacked, until he notices the gleam in Midorima’s dark eyes.

“You,” Takao says, pointing his fork very firmly at Midorima’s chest, “are an _asshole_.”

Something loosens in Midorima’s shoulders and the line of his back softens in a smooth comma, strands of dark hair falling into his eyes. Takao looks away, curling his fingers around the cold stem of his wineglass. “Aren’t you a doctor? A surgeon, even. I thought members of your profession cruised around in foreign cars and played golf.”

“I’ve still got two more years until I can sit for my specialist exams,” Takao snorts. “Two more years of piss poor pay and then a fellowship after _that_ in America if I’m lucky, and then maybe I can think about building the swimming pool full of yen I’ve been dreaming about since I was eight.”

“Ah,” Midorima says, but the corner of his mouth tugs up, almost in spite of itself.

“All the more reason to enjoy a nice out like this,” Takao grins, digging into his coq au vin and creamy roasted garlic mashed potatoes. “This is really wonderful, I haven’t had a dinner like this, in well--” Takao hastily tries to think of a substitute for _ever_ “--a long time,” he finishes, a little awkwardly.

“It is my pleasure,” Midorima says, very grave. “You saved my life, sensei.” The hollows of his cheeks have filled out a little since Takao has seen him last, but his skin is still translucent, and Takao can almost see the edge of his bones cutting through pale flesh.

“That’s my job,” Takao flushes, shoving a mouthful of potatoes in his mouth. “Couldn’t exactly leave you out to bleed on my table,” he mumbles around the mouthful of food.

“But it is to your credit that I have been able to recover as well as I have,” Midorima says, quiet. “My personal physician sends his gratitude as well.”

“Hmph,” Takao mutters, feeling the tips of his ears burn. “That does remind me-- did the police ever catch up to whoever did this to you?”

Midorima’s face turns blank-- the only expression detectable on his face is the way his lips thin out, ever so slightly. “No,” he says, toneless.

“Oh,” Takao flounders. “I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories, only I was just wondering-- it was terrible, you know. What they did.” Takao bites his bottom lip, skin going white from the pressure. “God, I sound like an idiot.” He pours another glassful of wine, avoiding eye contact.

“When they brought you in, lying on that stretcher, I thought--” Takao cuts himself off, swallowing hard.

“Takao-sensei…”

“I hope they catch the bastards,” he says, fierce.

 

* * *

 

 

_the one that almost became the plot of a three hour long bourne identity rip off flick_

 

 

The coffee was bitingly hot, scouring his taste buds and restoring some sense of warmth to his cold hands. Takao had only managed a sip before a clatter of sensible heels interrupted him and unceremoniously dropped a stack of clipboards in front of his computer.

“Who was it that said the q-word tonight?” Takao sighed and raked a hand through his greasy hair. His fingertips glistened unpleasantly in the light.

“No one with any amount of self-preservation,” Yamaguchi said, and rapped her knuckles on the wraparound counter that formed the nurse’s station. “But perhaps some intern thought it very loudly.” She gave him a wry smile.

Takao heaved himself out his chair and mournfully abandoned his coffee, next to the conference presentation he had been in the middle of writing for the past three months. “What have we got?”

“On the top and most pressing is a case of a walk-in wounded. Stabbed twice in the leg, once in the chest and that’s only what’s obvious. Took a cab up to the entrance and very nearly passed out while the idiots in triage sat him down to get a set of vitals.”

Takao grabbed the chart and skimmed through it rapidly, his eyebrows slowly merging with his hairline. “What, they didn’t notice the puddle of blood he was sitting in?”

“Apparently, he was wearing dark pants and was very stoic about it all,” Yamaguchi said, voice desert dry. “Kawasaki-sensei handled the initial admission. but she got called for a consult for someone in a VIP suite. He’s in Room 7. We’ve also got a stable chest pain after field administration of nitro, sitting in Room 9. Initial EKG shows a bundle branch block that looks interesting but otherwise normal sinus rhythm and we have her on fluids. Room 11, we’ve got an aggravated COPD with possible sepsis from the nursing home.”

“When it rains, it fucking pours.” Takao pinched the bridge of his nose. “Alright, have 7 stripped and I want him thoroughly assessed. Kawasaki got him on fluids and O2 at least, right?” Yamaguchi nodded.

“OK, just keep the bleeding controlled for now, give him a morphine drip and have him prepped for a CAT scan and a full set of xrays. Depending on that, we’ll either ship him up to surgery or just stitch him up down here and then keep him under observation. I want to to see the troponin numbers for Room 9 right away and then send the results and the EKG off to cardiology for a consult. We might as well try to shove her off to them as soon as possible. Room 11-- I don’t suppose the home sent anything useful to us, for a change?”

Yamaguchi shook her head, sympathetic.

“Alright, I want cultures and a full set of bloodwork done on Room 11 and put an intern on breathing patrol. Give it to Kanzaki, he looked a little too bored earlier. In the meantime, draw up an order for prostatitis and have it ready for titration.”

Yamaguchi handed him a sheaf of paperwork already filled out and waiting only for his signature. “Done and done, sensei.”

“You are a _godsend_ ,” Takao said fervently and scribbled illegibly on the lines marked with an x. “The ED would literally burn to the ground if it weren’t for you.”

She smiled placidly, silently accepting her due. “Now go on and make your rounds,” Yamaguchi said, gathering up the paperwork against her ample chest. “I’ll let you know when the results come back and you have to sign more paperwork.”

Takao gave her a boyish grin and darted in for a quick hug. She laughed and smacked his head gently.

“A goddess amongst mortals,” he said, only exaggerating slightly. “An angel descending from the heavens. The best head nurse to ever save my ass.”

“ _Go_ ,” she said a little more pointedly and paused for a second. “By the way, Stoic and Stabbed wants to see you.” She clicked her tongue against her teeth. “Rather, he wants to see the person that’s in charge, and that’s you.”

“What, he’s still conscious?”

Takao flipped open the chart for Room 7 up again, this time reading a little more slowly.Twenty eight year old male, Midorima Shintarou from Tokyo, Bunkyo Ward with no medical history, had stumbled out of a cab in the dead of the night and into the emergency room with the complaint of “I am feeling some discomfort in my right leg.” Initial assessment revealed two deep stab wounds to the right thigh, bleeding sluggishly, and another right between his ribs, a black eye and a bloody nose. Stoic indeed.

“Barely,” Yamaguchi informed him. “He’s in and out, but when he talks, he seems oriented. Fluids are helping but not much.”

“Hmm, alright, I’ll pay him a visit first.” Takao huffed and picked up his now lukewarm mug of coffee. Most of the heat had leached out of the cup but it was enough to keep the chilling numbness in his fingers at bay. Some halfwit had looked at the calendar instead of the actual weather forecast and cranked the A/C all the way up; Takao was very nearly sure he could see his breath fog up in the air. “I’ll pass on supplementary orders with Kanzaki.”

Yamaguchi inclined her head at him and bustled off determinedly to file paperwork and wrestle with the ancient Dell behemoth that sat discontentedly in the nurse’s station, breathing out flames and freezing up at the slightest provocation.

Takao chugged his coffee, wiped his mouth with his coat sleeve and tucked the charts under his arm. He tried to pat his hair into some semblance of presentability, hitched up the waistband of his sagging scrubs and went to work.

 

\---

The critical care unit of the emergency room had the lights set to dim, in deference to the late hours and the sleepy nurses idly tapping on their phones. The influx of patients had settled down, either shipped upstairs or settled comfortably into one of the holding rooms. Takao much preferred it here to acute, which housed the more garden variety of emergencies, like “I need a doctor’s note so I can get sick leave from my boss.”

He gave one of Yamaguchi’s minions a casual wave; she flushed and her thumbs pecked furiously away on her phone keyboard. Takao hid a grin as he trotted over to the end of the room’. The walls were lined with reams and reams of a kind of plastic fabric, sectioning off rooms that housed beds and monitors.

Room 7 was prime real estate, located right in the corner away from the busy entrance and an empty bed right next to it. Takao popped his head through a slight gap in the curtains, letting his eyes adjust to the shadows swathing the cramped space. Vitals looked good, BP was a little lower than he liked but the plasma and saline seemed to be helping. No internal damage, which was a godsend and his right lung looked only slightly nicked. Pleural pressure looked stable, against all odds. No surgery needed, pending further observation, and the patient might as well find himself discharged well within a few days. Takao consulted the chart in his hand and frowned.

There was a small note appended to the top, in Yamaguchi’s precise handwriting: _refused morphine drip_.

Strange. Still, it was better than having an addict coming in and demanding opiates.

Takao slid all the way into the tiny room and cleared his throat. “Midorima-san?” In the darkness, he could only make out the faintest hint of a body, swaddled in hospital issue blankets. Very tall, judging by the way his feet threatened to dangle over the edge. He inched closer, hooking around the IV pole and bending close. “I’m Takao Kazunari, chief resident on duty tonight. How’re you doing?”

The greenish backdrop of the monitor gave the man’s winter-pale skin a curious yellow tinge and highlighted the sharp angle of his jaw.

“I’m told you refused the morphine drip. If you have any concerns about the dosage we’re using or perhaps there’s a medical reason...?”

Eyelashes fluttered and the strange man licked his lips. “Glasses,” he rasped.

Takao blinked. “Beg your pardon?”

“My _glasses_ ,” he said, and even in the dim light, Takao caught the way the man’s face tightened.

“Oh. Well, let’s see--” Takao bent down and rummaged by the foot of the bed, where presumably the patient’s personal items were gathered in a plastic bag. He dug through it blindly, feeling something sticky cling to his fingers, before he hit upon a cold metal object. He fished it out gingerly, noting the dried blood spattered across the glass.

“Well, there’s some stuff on the lens bits--”

“‘s fine,” the patient muttered, eyes drifting closed.

Takao wiped the glasses discreetly with the corner of his coat and crept closer. He unfolded the frame and slid it gently onto the patient’s nose.

“There you go,” Takao breathed.

Midorima opened his eyes and his face suddenly snapped into focus; it was as if Takao had been looking down at an old grainy photo, only to realize that the real image was in front of him all along.

There was nothing gentle about his face, only hard, jagged bones and a razor blade nose that looked like it would draw blood. His eyes were a dark, impenetrable green, glinting in the dark like cut glass.

“Um. Hi.”

Midorima stayed silent, but his eyes narrowed.

Takao shook off the strange feeling crawling up his spine and cleared his throat again. “So, Mystery Man, what exactly is going on here? You walk into the emergency room with three stab wounds, a broken nose and several cracked ribs, almost pass out from shock, refuse to tell anyone what’s going, refuse painkillers and all you say is that you want to talk to the person in charge.” Takao placed his hands at his hips. “Well, here I am.”

“I need you to keep this quiet.”

“What--?”

“I know you’re required to report all gunshot and knife wounds to the police,” he said, in a very quiet voice.

“Well, yes,” Takao said, suspicious. “It’s mandated by law.”

There was a grim finality ringing in Midorima’s voice. “Don’t.”

“You don’t exactly have the right to tell me how to run my emergency room, Midorima-san,” Takao said, voice low and intent. “Especially when you look like you’ve been tangled up in a crime scene that the police _should_ be involved with.”

Something shifted in Midorima’s face, eyes darkening in what Takao realized was anger. “You don’t understand, the situation will only escalate. They _will_ find me if you upload my information online to the police databanks. Not only am I in danger, but the safety of the hospital is at risk. They will stop at nothing to finish the job.”

Takao had seen the type before, during his med school rotations in Tokyo General. The man was probably off his meds and had gotten caught up in some minor violence on the streets. There was one woman who’d thought the government manufactured toothpaste with surveillance implants. She had been a virulent opponent of dental hygiene. She had also, unfortunately, been a biter.

“If you genuinely believe that someone is after you, Midorima-san, the best thing is to let the police handle this sort of thing,” he said gently.

“You think I’m crazy.”

“I--” Takao rocked back on his heels. “Midorima-san, I’m not exactly qualified to make that kind of diagnosis. However, if you do have a medical condition, it is of vital importance that you mention it now. It will only help us in delivering the best healthcare possible.”

“I’ve already told you everything you need to know,” Midorima said blandly. “Is it my fault if you refuse to believe it?”

Takao bit back a sour huff of frustration. “Very well. Is that your only concern?”

“I have inferred that my injuries are non life-threatening, given the fact that I’m not currently lying in an operating room, nor admitted upstairs to an intensive care unit. I assume you’ll keep me a while longer for observation and plan to discharge me to an outpatient clinic in order to manage my injuries.” Midorima paused, the lines around his mouth tightening as he took a small and very shallow breath. “So, no. I don’t have any _other_ concerns. Sensei.”

Crazy and an asshole. Tonight was his lucky night. Takao gave the patient a thin-lipped smile and slid the chart onto the stand hanging off the edge of the bed. “Rounds start at seven in the morning, Midorima-san, but I trust you already knew that. I hope you have a better end to your night than the way it started.”

Midorima pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. Takao took note of the slight trembling, but otherwise said nothing. “Remember this: you were warned,” Midorima said gravely.

Takao sketched him a quick bow and retreated quickly, muttering a vague good night. The man’s dark green eyes never wavered as he fled from the suddenly too small room, white coat flaring about his legs.

 

\---

It was nearly half past seven when Takao blazed through the locker room doors with an onigiri stuffed in his mouth and a whole stack of paperwork clenched tightly in one hand. A very large thermos of tea balanced precariously in the crook of his elbow.

“You’re late!” a passing voice piped up and Takao could only spare the idiot a foul look as he hurried his way down the hallway and towards the critical care unit, just missing a collision with Patches and his battered stretcher.

“No better place to break your neck than a hospital, I suppose,” the grizzled old medic observed as he turned the corner, black eyepatch stark against his ruddy skin. “I brought you a nice gift, by the way.”

Takao chewed furiously on his riceball and washed it down with a sip of tea. “Who?” he choked out, hissing as the hot liquid scalded his tongue.

“Princess Mako,” Patches said, grinning maliciously.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Takao swore. “She’s been here three times in as many days. Yesterday it was her blood sugar, the day before it was fucking arthritis. What is it today?”

“General weakness,” Patches said, scratching his stubble-dark chin. “Though judging from the way she’s been complaining, seems more like an affliction of too much personality.”

“She’s as healthy as a horse.” Takao aggressively sipped his tea, ignoring the sudden loss of sensation in his tastebuds. The burning ache felt good against the tension headache already building up in his temples. “If her goddamned kids would visit her, she wouldn’t be here half as often, clogging up the lines and making our lives miserable. She’s lonely, not critically ill.”

“Can’t exactly blame them,” Patches said, fishing out a pack of Golden Bats from a back pocket. “America probably isn’t far away enough from the harridan.” He pulled out a slim cigarette and waved it in Takao’s direction. “You have time for a smoke break with us lowly peasants, sensei?”

Takao looked longingly at the cigarette. He was late enough as it was, five more minutes would hardly make a difference. “I--”

Yamaguchi’s head popped around the corner, her lips tugged down in a most severe frown. “Takao-sensei!”

“Erk,” Takao sighed.

“I’ve been looking all over you! You’re late!”

Patches gave him a sympathetic look as he popped the cigarette in his mouth and casually strolled away with his stretcher. Takao restrained the urge to throw himself at the old medic’s feet and beg him to protect him from Yamaguchi’s wrath.

“Where have you been?!” She gave a scandalized look at the uncombed mess of his hair and sloppy unwashed scrubs he was sporting. “Did you oversleep again, sensei?”

“Uh.”

Yamaguchi gave him a withering glare and whisked away the files in his grasp. “Never mind that, you have a visitor from the police. Says it’s urgent business.”

“The police?” Takao blinked. “Why are the police here?”

“Said they’re doing some kind of investigation, I don’t know.” Yamaguchi gave him a harried look as the pager on her waist went off. “They’ve been waiting in Conference Room 6 for the past fifteen minutes. Damnit, Kazaki’s stuck on the central line again. I have to get going-- there’s a stack of discharge papers sitting on your desk, get them signed and sent to Billings & Codes straightaway. And fix your damn hair!”

“Yes ma’am,” Takao said obediently and trotted down the hallway, finger combing his hair. A passing reflection in a glass window informed him that his efforts were in vain. Sighing, Takao abandoned his hair in favor of the large ketchup stain on the front of his scrubs. Spit only made the spot bigger, so he buttoned up his white coat awkwardly with one hand, the other juggling his extra large cup of tea.

 

* * *

 

 

_the one where it's midorima's point of view, for once_

  
Room was a generous description of the curtain-lined stall equipped with a bed, a vitals monitor and several IV poles that loomed sinisterly in the dim light. It was a far cry from the private clinic Midorima usually visited, but given the circumstances, he would have to make do with what was available…

The fabric rustled and a dark head popped through the slight gap. Midorima narrowed his eyes and clenched his right fist tightly. His nails bit deeply into his palm, skin whitening at the sudden pressure.

Slim shoulders followed after a brief hesitation, and then the rest of his body slipped through the curtains. The man was clad in a long white coat and obnoxiously green scrubs, waist sagging from the weight of too many pagers.

“Midorima-san?” He straightened and shifted closer, negotiating the cramped space between curtain and bed with a practiced air. “I’m Takao Kazunari, chief resident on duty tonight. How’re you doing?” Midorima could make out the barest hint of a smile on the doctor’s face, but the rest of his features were lost in a fuzzy haze.

“I’m told you refused the morphine drip. If you have any concerns about the dosage we’re using or perhaps there’s a medical reason...?”

Midorima licked his cracked lips. “Glasses,” he rasped.

Even half-blinded and in the dark, Midorima could make out the confused blink. “Beg your pardon?”

Midorima hissed in frustration. “My _glasses_ ,” he said, biting back a pained grunt as his ribs twinged in sudden protest.

“Oh. Well, let’s see--” Takao-sensei bent down and rummaged by the foot of the bed, where presumably Midorima’s personal items were gathered in a plastic bag, along with the remnants of his tattered suit.

He fished something out and gingerly held it up in the air. “Well, there’s a little bit of blood on the glass--”

“‘s fine,” Midorima muttered and briefly closed his eyes. The ache in his stitched up leg throbbed in irritating counterpoint to the constant searing pain in his ribs, taking the edge off his thoughts. There was a fine line between pain-sharpened and pain-dulled concentration, and he was slipping dangerously close to wrong side.

Clogs scuffed against waxed linoleum and the faintest hint of warm, coffee-scented breath tickled Midorima’s ear. Cold metal slid against his temples and settled reassuringly onto the bridge of his nose.

“There you go,” Takao-sensei breathed.

Midorima opened his eyes.

Stubble lined a sharp jawline, framing a thin mouth that was curved into a casual smile. Cool grey eyes glittered amidst the shadows clinging to the sweep of dark hair across his pale brow. Dark purple circles ringed his eyes, in sharp contrast to his winter-pale skin.

“Hello there.”

Midorima swallowed.

“So, Mystery Man, what exactly is going on here? You walk into the emergency room with two stab wounds, a broken nose and several cracked ribs, almost pass out from shock, refuse to tell anyone what’s going, refuse painkillers and all you say is that you want to talk to the person in charge.” Takao-sensei placed his hands at his hips. “Well, here I am.”

“I need you to keep this quiet.”

“What--”

Midorima gave him a sharp look. “I know you’re required to report all gunshot and knife wounds to the police,” he said, quiet.

“Well, yes,” Takao-sensei said, eyes narrowing. “It’s mandated by law.”

“Don’t.”

“You don’t exactly have the right to tell me how to run my emergency room, Midorima-san,” Takao-sensei said, voice low and intent. “Especially when you look like you’ve been tangled up in a crime scene that the police _should_ be involved.”

“It’s for your own saftey.”


End file.
